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Turkish
baths
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Revision
in progress |
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Since
this article was originally published, further information has come to
hand. Consequently the article is in the process of being corrected and
revised. The new version will appear within a few weeks and, when it is
published, this note will be removed. |
This was one of the first Victorian Turkish baths
to be established in Ireland, and seems to have been the first one not
to have been set up under the aegis of Dr Barter.
But there is a slight problem in that, apart from
the directory entries reproduced in the chronology above, very little is
known about the establishment. In particular, it is not known exactly
what type of hot air bath it was—even though it was originally called a
'Turkish' bath.
We know that soon after it opened
it was visited by W B B Scriven, a mechanical engineer by profession,
who described it as '...
small but good' in an article published in 1860 in a homeopathic
journal. Initially,
the establishment probably was modelled on Barter's 'Improved'
Turkish bath in that the hot air was dry rather than humid.*
But as we don't know Scriven's views about the value, or otherwise, of
humid air we cannot assume that he approved of the bath because the air
was dry.
The doubt about whether this was a Barter-type
Victorian Turkish bath arises from the conclusions to be drawn from an
article by an
anonymous writer in the Dublin University Magazine who claimed
'upwards of thirty years in the use of baths of this [?] kind'.
He
described what he called the 'thermal bath' which was in use in this establishment
and, summing up, he writes:
The thermal bath, which is the safest and
most agreeable to the sensations, is that in which the hot dry air of
the common Turkish bath is modified by a jet d'eau descending in
a fine shower in the centre of the bath, as seen in the bath
establishment in Temple-street; where the medicated vapour bath,
enclosing the patient under a canopy, is in use. By these arrangements,
the greatest advantages without the slightest risk are obtained.
This would seem to indicate that amongst the
facilities provided, there was a hot air bath which was at least humid.
But whether
this was in addition to a normal Turkish bath, or whether it was actually what Hugh Gillis, the
then manager, called a Turkish bath, is not known.
Major Poore, close political colleague of David
Urquhart and later to be the largest shareholder in the London &
Provincial Turkish Bath Co Ltd, visited these baths in 1863, but
unfortunately nothing has been found to indicate what he thought of them.
This
account should be treated as work in progress. Further research is needed
to fill in further information about what type of baths they were, how they were used, and how long
they survived.
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